What Goes Up. . .?

. . . Must come down. This afternoon, I tagged along with an engineering class and a calculus class both taught by Dr. David Unger from the University of Evansville for a visit to

All together now. . .the birthplace and childhood home of Sir Isaac Newton, he of the laws of motion and gravity, the spectrum of light, and the inventor of fluxions which we now call the Calculus--and yes I know that Leibniz is also credited with this discovery, but I wasn't visiting his birthplace, I was at little Isaac's, so cool it.

It was in this house that Newton was born on Christmas Day, 1642, (OS) in the room at the upper left of the house.

For anyone who has taken my Origins III class in the last 15 years or so, you have seen this house at the beginning of Bronowski's The Majestic Clockwork. I've stolen so much from that film over the years for my lectures on the Scientific Revolution that I feel like I should be paying royalties to the late Dr. B's estate. But, if you are going to steal, might as well be from the best.

And, of course, here is THE TREE, seriously, this is the apple tree in the field in front of the manor. It was blown down in a storm in the early 19th century, but the root system was undamaged and it has regrown. Cuttings from it have been taken to Cambridge (both England and Massachusetts) and several other spots around the world.

As you can see from the foliage, autumn is coming on strong here, and I confess I miss the leaves falling across campus in Bethany now. The weather has turned rather dreary this week. Haven't seen the sun for three days, only endless fog. Hard to get a picture of, but this is a pretty good example.

Visibility is at best about 300-400 yards at the height of the day, much less in the morning and toward darkness which is creeping in earlier and earlier these days. We go back to standard time on Sunday which will mean darkness before 5 p.m. We're much farther north than Bethany, so the hours of daylight will shrink to about 8-4 by the time I'm ready to leave in early December. Anyway, that was our visit to Newton's home. Very glad I got to do this and my thanks to Dr. Unger.